PC / Mac

There are multiple reports on forums and in chat rooms and on my Google Chat screen about Diablo 3 users seeing their accounts hacked, their items stolen and money plundered or even their entire accounts hijacked. It’s like the old days when your ICQ account would no longer work. Poof.

I’ve heard mixed things about this one based off some press previews. This is a game I want to be good because the setting remains one that I am fascinated with despite the milking of the movie franchise and the way that (almost) every videogame ever made centering on the xenomorphs have turned out.

We’ll now get to find out on February 12th if Gearbox has another Borderlands on its hands or another Duke Nukem. Or maybe another Brothers in Arms…but with Aliens. With all of the delays, one has to wonder…

Eurogamer has a massive article up today on the making of The Witcher 2 and how it was ported to the Xbox 360 and a host of other topics. This is absolutely worth a read, although you may want to bring a snack.

It’s Brakke-esque in its length.

There’s a ton of tech talk here if you are into that sort of thing but the big take away, for me, was that the people at CD Projekt RED are not to be messed with — this is a ridiculously talented group of developers, programmers, writers and artists. They deserve every accolade they get and I cannot wait to see what they do next.

Let’s just hope they don’t go down an all to familiar road…

I loved this bit about the community in regards to both DLC and DRM:

“We create and deliver DLC as a way to retain our loyal fan base and don’t want to alienate them by nickel-and-diming them every time we release something new,” explains executive producer John Mamais. “Hopefully we can also pick up some new fans along the way with such a philosophy. The community is very important to the continuing success of a game development studio, and we always try to listen to our fan feedback.”

Mamais also hopes that the studio’s noted dislike of DRM helps reduce the impact of piracy.

“I think we’ve gained lots of respect in the gaming community because of it and hopefully that’s mitigating some of the piracy,” he says. “When W2 pirates openly converse on forums they are often lambasted by other would-be pirates because of our policy – look at the comments on 4chan, where pirates were getting trolled for trying to download our game. To some extent, that’s evidence that our way is not only right, but actually makes an impact. We need folks to buy the game so we can earn enough cash to make the next one – but customers should feel that they want to buy it. That’s why we put so much care into our community.”

One of the best strategy/wargames of the year, or maybe the past few years, is now available in demo form on both PC and Mac. Unity of Command is a wonderful piece of game design and you really need to give it a whirl.

I don’t actually know much about Resonance, except that it’s a new point-and-click adventure from xii games and Wadjet Eye Games, publisher of Gemini Rue, and it features voice-work from Logan Cunningham (aka Bastion’s narrator). Oh, and the trailer has a quote from Forbes.com, which means…something, I guess. Still, I’m a sucker for classically-inspired adventure games, and this one is looking mighty tempting.

Resonance is set to release June 19, but you can currently choose from two flavors of pre-orders, including a boxed collector’s edition for $24.99, or the digital-only version for $8.99 through GOG.com.

If you bought into the hype of a wholly re-imagined MMO, Guild Wars 2 will likely spark a tinge of disappointment, but it’s a temporary affliction. MMO-players have certain expectations, and some staples of the genre work just as they are, so trashing all of that ‘just because’ would probably amount to video game suicide.

While most MMO developers focus on giving familiar features a unique spin, ArenaNet is re-examining the core purposes and implementations of those features. It’s a subtle, but very important difference.

In case you didn’t notice, the Diablo 3 servers are down again today for “maintenance.” So my plan of playing some Diablo 3 this morning before getting into my workday has been shuttered, forcing me to actually read emails, reply to emails, and finish up E3 scheduling (I hate E3 scheduling). How long will the servers be down? Who knows? Blizzard said it was to be from 4:00AM to 7:00AM PDT.

When you buy an MMO you expect this sort of thing as it goes with the territory but it didn’t have to be this way for Diablo 3. In speaking to Todd yesterday he made a great point. I remember because that doesn’t happen every day.

This is less about Diablo. People are going to jump through hoops to play Diablo because it’s Diablo. It’s an “event” game. However, this will most assuredly affect the next new Blizzard IP if the company tries to pull this online nonsense off again with a game that isn’t built specifically for online play. I’ll be your monkey to play Diablo. But not the next game.

Of course I have no idea if Todd really means that, but I’m willing to bet there are going to be people who remember this launch because I’m looking at a $60 piece of software I cannot use until Blizzard says it’s ok to do so. Will all of these hiccups get worked out in the coming weeks? I hope. I think they will. But that’s not really the point though is it?

At least Blizzard has acknowledged this. The company released a statement asking for patience.

…we’d also like to say that we’ve been humbled by your enthusiasm — and we sincerely regret that your crusade to bring down the Lord of Terror was thwarted not by mobs of demons, but by mortal infrastructure. As many of you are aware, technical issues occurring within hours after the game’s launch led to players experiencing error messages and difficulty logging in. These issues cropped up again last night for the Americas and Europe servers. Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough.

While I am still (slowly) tooling around with Endless Space, let us not forget the beta for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, which you can play by pre-ordering the game from Stardock. This is becoming quite the fad it seems – this whole pre-order/play the beta deal which really I like a hell of a lot more than the, “Pre-order from Gamestop/Amazon/Target and get a neato piece of armor or a pew-pew laser gun that causes +5 damage” scheme.

Of course here you are literally paying to beta test the game but you sort of know that going in, right?

Anyway, Sins was (and is) a great game so I see no reason why not to jump in and support Rebellion. We’ll have some folks from Ironclad on the podcast soon. Should be fun.